The CORE Courses

LIA 101: C3: Community, Covenant, Commitments (3 credits)

This course introduces incoming freshmen to life at Arizona Christian University, including who we are, how we live, and what we believe. Course content includes: presentation of the University liberal arts philosophy and curriculum, mission and vision, community covenant, and University core commitments.

LIA 102: Biblical Worldview and Culture (3 credits)

This course is divided into three content areas designed to prepare students for future studies in the Liberal Arts series and their chosen academic major: 1) strategic Biblical worldview training; 2) Biblical theories of culture; and 3) introduction to a biblical understanding of the concepts of truth, beauty, goodness, and justice.

ENG 101: English Composition I (3 credits)

In ENG 101, students will develop college-level writing skills. Students will learn to create written arguments, tailored to a variety of situations, including writing for academic settings. As students learn to put forth written arguments, grammatical concepts are reinforced and strengthened. ENG 101 culminates in a formal essay in which the student demonstrates their ability to put forth an argument and defend their claim using basic research and argumentation. Prerequisite: ACU English proficiency and placement required.

ENG 102: English Composition II (3 credits)

ENG 102 deepens a student’s college-level writing skills by fostering a maturing knowledge of information literacy and library research. Students will integrate quality research sources into a formal research paper. Prerequisite: ENG 101. This course is a prerequisite for all courses in biblical languages.

COM 100: Public Speaking (3 credits)

In COM 100, students will learn to prepare and deliver professional public presentations. Students will practice essential public speaking skills while considering ways to ethically serve audience members. Students will also learn the art of speaking persuasively, drawing upon the historical roots of rhetoric and oratory found in the traditional liberal arts.

Executive Summary of the Humanities Sequence

The Arizona Christian University Liberal Arts Humanities Sequence reclaims a Christian worldview of the liberal arts and connects ACU’s mission, vision and core values to learning. The series includes four consecutive three-credit courses organized by time periods, spanning the history of human experience. The series begins the first semester of the student’s sophomore year and continues each semester, concluding the second semester of the junior year. The courses are constructed using best practices of cohort learning, interdisciplinary team-teaching, course clustering (with the Bible courses), instructor-facilitated group discussions, and service-learning.

At the conclusion of the series, students will have learned the evolution of human ideas and philosophies, significant historical events and scientific discoveries, differing artistic reactions to the events and ideas of each period of human history, including literature, visual art, and music – all filtered through a biblical worldview lens and the truth of Scripture.

The humanities series explores the human experience and the development of ideas throughout human history. Themes of truth, beauty, justice, and goodness are examined in light of local, global, and popular culture and analyzed from a biblical worldview perspective. Topic areas will include the arts, philosophy, ethics, science, government, church, and the family.

Humanities Course

Time Period

HUM 201

Creation to the Birth of Christ

HUM 202

Life of Christ to 1500

HUM 301

1500 to 1900

HUM 302

1900 to Present

HUM 201: The Human Narrative I: BC to Birth of Christ (3 credits)

The humanities series explores the human experience and the development of ideas throughout human history. Themes of truth, beauty, justice, and goodness are examined in light of local, global, and –modern culture and analyzed from a biblical worldview perspective. Topic areas will include the arts, philosophy, ethics, science, government, church, and the family. HUM 201 covers the time period of the beginning of civilization (BC) to the Birth of Christ.

HUM 202: The Human Narrative II: 0 to 1500 (3 credits)

The humanities series explores the human experience throughout history. Themes of truth, beauty, justice, and goodness are examined in light of local, global, and popular culture from a biblical worldview. Topic areas will include the arts, philosophy, ethics, science, government, church, and the family. HUM 202 covers the time period from the Birth of Christ (Year 0) to 1500.

HUM 301: The Human Narrative III: 1500 to 1900 (3 credits)

The humanities series explores the human experience throughout history. Themes of truth, beauty, justice, and goodness are examined in light of local, global, and popular culture from a biblical worldview. Topic areas will include the arts, philosophy, ethics, science, government, church, and the family. HUM 301 covers the time period: 1500-1900.

HUM 302: The Human Narrative IV: 1900 to the Present (3 credits)

The humanities series explores the human experience throughout history. Themes of truth, beauty, justice, and goodness are examined in light of local, global, and popular culture from a biblical worldview. Topic areas will include the arts, philosophy, ethics, science, government, church, and the family. HUM 302 covers the time period: 1900 to present.

LIA 490: Senior Capstone (3 credits)

The Senior Capstone represents the culmination of an ACU student’s liberal arts education. In the Senior Capstone experience, students will meet in small classes (10-12 students) with others from their academic discipline to synthesize and make connections between: a) their disciplines; b) the courses they’ve taken, and c) their personal calling, within the context of the biblical worldview and God’s truth.

Linked Courses

The CORE curriculum strategically links courses in the Humanities and Bible to provide students an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Christian Liberal Arts at Arizona Christian University. Students take these courses concurrently, providing a richer, more cohesive understanding of the interaction of faith and the public square in a given time period. For example, when students are learning about the great works of the ancients in the HUM 201 (from the dawn of human history to the birth of Christ), they also are learning the Old Testament history from the same time period in the linked BIB 105. Linking these courses is designed to enrich student experience by strategically pairing Bible courses with the same time period of their Humanities sequence. During a student’s junior year, when studying the human experience from 1900 to the present, they also will be taking BIB 400, an apologetics course designed to teach them to take their faith to a culture that no longer recognizes the Truth of God. During a student’s freshman year, required courses in English, Communication (public speaking), and the Introduction to the Bible are strategically linked to the CORE courses introducing the University and an understanding of biblical worldview and culture in LIA 101 and LIA 102.

CORE Linked Courses

The following courses within the CORE curriculum are linked and must be taken concurrently:

MAT 101 and SCI 100

HUM 201 and BIB 105

HUM 202 and BIB 205

HUM 301 and BIB 304

HUM 302 and BIB 400

The content of freshman courses (LIA 101, LIA 102, BIB 100, ENG 101, ENG 102, COM 100) is integrated.
These courses are taken in sequence during a student’s first year at ACU.

Bible Courses

All ACU students take 18 credits of Bible courses, as outlined below. These required courses are specifically linked to other courses in the CORE, particularly to the Humanities (HUM) sequence. This is designed so that as students learn the content and history of the Bible, while also studying the major themes and ideas in culture, literature, art, and politics that developed alongside the biblical tradition.

This course provides the student a general introduction to the Bible, its composition, its history, its canonicity, as well as introduce students to the tools and process of biblical interpretation.

BIB 105: Ancient Israel and its Literature (3 credits)

This course provides an analysis of the Old Testament within the literary and theological context of the whole Bible. It focuses on the theological, literary, and historical dimensions of the Old Testament text and story; draws theological connections to major themes and figures of the Old Testament and its biblical theological emphases; and makes application to modern Christianity, both corporate (church) and personal (spiritual growth). Prerequisites: Students ought to have completed either BIB 100: Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Interpretation or BIB 101: Biblical Interpretation. Course should be taken concurrently with HUM 201.

BIB 205: Early Christianity and its Literature (3 credits)

A survey of the New Testament. The entire New Testament is surveyed to focus on the redemptive movement of God from the life and ministry of Jesus and the Apostles through the Epistles and Revelation. Life application is stressed. Prerequisites: none. This course should be taken concurrently with HUM 202.

BIB 304: Theology (3 credits)

This course introduces students to the study of theology. Special focus will be given to the study of the Bible, God, the person and work of Jesus Christ, and salvation. The course will also provide a brief introduction to the study of the Holy Spirit, the church, and end times. Students will learn to discover theology in Scripture and apply the theology learned to everyday life. Prerequisite: BIB 100 or BIB 101. This course should be taken concurrently with HUM 301.

BIB 400: Apologetics (3 credits)

Students will learn the practical art of defending the Christian faith. Modern challenges to and arguments against biblical Christianity will be addressed. This course should be taken concurrently with HUM 302.

Upper-Division Bible Elective (3 credits)

Students choose from among dozens of 300- or 400-level BIB courses to fulfill this requirement, depending on their specific interests.

OTHER COURSES

Students will learn research skills and evidence-based decision-making in four areas of science: biology, geology, astronomy, and physics. The laboratory component will emphasize open-ended experiments that require collaborative processes.

SCI 100 is taken concurrently with MAT 105.

MAT 101: Math for the Liberal Arts (3 credits)

MAT 101 is taken concurrently with SCI 100: Experiencing Science and provides the mathematical context for that introductory science course. The course investigates basic statistics ending with answering the question, “How do we make decisions using statistics?” The course also introduces computer coding (in Java or Python) to help students think logically.